Motherboard Chipset Cooler Roundup

Six heatsinks, one chipset, and a truckload full screws. We mount these little metal blocks onto a hot nForce4 motherboard to find out which one cools best and is most SLI friendly.

Coolermaster Blue Ice (Pro) - specs and package

Coolermaster Blue Ice & Blue Ice Pro

Material

Blue Ice: aluminum & copper base

Blue Ice Pro: copper

Heatsink Dimensions

Blue Ice: 81mm (L) X 37mm (W) X 47mm (H)

Blue Ice Pro: 43.4mm (L) X 43.4mm (W) X 30mm (H)

Fan Dimension & Specs

Blue Ice: 40mm/4500RPM/4.5CFM

Blue Ice Pro: 40mm/5000RPM/4.5CFM

Weight

Blue Ice:140gr

Blue Ice Pro: 90gr

Package

Coolermaster has updated their Blue Ice which was reviewed here before; the Blue Ice Pro comes in a similar package with everything included for installation. It?s design however has changed quite a bit.

The Blue Ice has a copper base and one copper heat pipe that transfers the heat to the aluminum fins, a small 40mm blue LED fan sits in the middle to provide airflow. The fan is connected to a plastic cover serving as top of this cooler. The fan uses a 3-pin plug for power. You could remove it if you want, but I can see no purpose as to why you should. As far as installation goes, this cooling solution is fairly easy to use but you?ll have to remove the motherboard from the case, which takes up most of the installation time.

Switching to the Blue Ice Pro then is a bigger step than the suffix 'Pro' would tell. It's better to state that the Pro version is a completely new chipset cooler from Coolermaster. The Blue Ice Pro looks less impressive but I can already assure you that looks are deceiving. I already said in the previous paragraph that the packaging method is the same for both.

There are more similarities than that; this heat sink also uses a copper base in combination with a copper heat sink. The small 40mm blue LED fan really dominates the small cooler. Apart from its different design, the Pro version weighs a lot less: 90gr compared to 140gr. The mirror finish and manual are a given on both coolers.